Phebe Karen Beiser is a student of history and spent years working as a local librarian. So, it makes sense she's one of those leading the charge to preserve local LGBTQ+ history, from a room in the basement of a church in Clifton.
Throughout 2021, the Ohio History Connection has offered up a series of workshops called Where My Single Folk? that are all about finding those family members who never married or passed away unmarried, including those who might have been LGBTQ.
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The exhibit is curated by Saad Ghosn and grew out of a workshop created by artist Jay DeFazio. His project Inside Out is a community-based art initiative celebrating the strength, beauty, and resiliency of transgender individuals. He helps workshop participants conceive and create mixed-media self portraits.
It can be abstract; it can be literal, DeFazio explains. It can be metaphorical; it can be words. This doesn t have to be representative of your entire life, this could be one aspect of who your are. Any part of your identity.
Untitled self portrait by Ashton Michael Lee.
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Twenty-eight artists contributed portraits for the exhibit. Each is paired with a description provided by the artist and a poem from a Greater Cincinnati poet reflecting on an individual piece.